TRANSCRIPT:
I’m Mark Rapp, and this is Rapp on Jazz.
To understand jazz, you’ve gotta feel the blues. Born from the spirituals, work songs, and deep sorrow of African American life in the South, the blues gave jazz its backbone—and its soul.
The blues isn’t just a genre—it’s a form, a language, a way to tell the truth. That familiar 12-bar structure? It’s the foundation for countless jazz solos, compositions, and improvisations.
Artists like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker all drew on the blues. And even in the wildest bebop or coolest modern jazz, you’ll still hear that cry, that call, that blue note bending the line between joy and pain.
The blues taught jazz to swing, to testify, to express what words can’t say.
This has been Rapp on Jazz, a co-production of ColaJazz and SC Public Radio, made possible by The ETV Endowment of South Carolina.